Johann P. Arnason is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Human Studies at Charles University, Prague. He taught sociology in Heidelberg and Bielefeld from 1972 to 1975, and at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, from 1975 to 2003. He has been a visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and at the University of Leipzig, and a research fellow of the Alexander v. Humboldt-Stiftung, the Swedish Institute of Advanced Studies, the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut (Essen), the Lichtenberg-Kolleg in Göttingen and the Max-Weber-Kolleg in Erfurt. His research interests centre on social theory and historical sociology, with particular emphasis on the comparative analysis of civilizations. Marek Hrubec, philosopher and social and political theorist, is Director of the Centre of Global Studies in the Institute of Philosophy at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. He also teaches at Charles University in Prague. He focuses on justice, development, and social and political changes in the macro-regional and global contexts. His latest work is Justice and Recognition which he co-edited with N. De Oliveira, E. Sobottka and G. Saavedra (2015).